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Dustin, Mac Support Specialist

Category: Mac

Satisfied Customers: 13307

Experience: Over a decade putting the missing byte back into Apple. Also worked in The US Army as A Network Switching Systems Operator/Controller

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My hard drive failed (bad sectors). The Apple store replaced

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My hard drive failed (bad sectors). The Apple store replaced the hard drive and loaded 10.6.8. I bought a SATA docking station and recovered every fie on the old drive with one exception - the photos that were stored in iPhoto. When I try to open iphoto on the old drive I get a message that the volume is locked and to retry when I have access. Can you suggest how I can retrieve those photos and/or events?

If you control click on the iphoto library folder.. And then get info..

Add your current mac user with permissions to read and write.. Once thats done..

Try to make a copy of the iphoto libray.. ( dont try to open it )

Then, move that copy onto your internal hard drive.. And then you should be able to select it by holding down option in iphoto, selecting the library and opening it to view the pictures.

The key is, we want to make sure you have read and write permission, and then copy the file onto your internal hard drive.. ( since that was a failing hard drive previously, we dont want to leave the data on it)

If you run into any issues, send a detailed reply and I will continue to assist you further as needed.

I strive to provide great service, and greatly appreciate a rating of excellent below when you are satisfied.. I always answer follow up questions.

No. Before, I tried to open the old iphoto app and got a pop up showing the library in a box. Now I do not. Where do I find the library on the old hard drive? "There is nothing in the Library folder labelled "iphoto."

Excellent.. All we should have to do.. Is add that folder to iphoto on your mac.. And all your pictures should be back in place..

Of course.. You would have to separate those pictures into folders / albums again.. (unless you want to open the photo library, and drag and drop the photo folders from the old library to the new library one at a time, manually creating a matching folder title in your new iphoto library, for each individual folder from the old drive, prior to dragging and dropping the folder.)

I'll be tsanding by in case you need further assistance..

I strive to provide great service, and greatly appreciate a rating of excellent below when you are satisfied.. I always answer follow up questions.